The American coot (mudhen) has trouble finding shoes that fit. When someone calls you “an old coot,” this is what they mean. Photo by Al Batt.

Naturally
Spring has sprung and birds return from that mysterious place called “south.”
Spring has sprung a leak by the looks of my boots and plants don’t stop be-leafing. If you want to be outstanding, stand outside. Spring is when Chihuahuas venture outside without their sweaters.
Terri Guillemets wrote, “My favorite weather is bird chirping weather.” Anonymous wrote, “Spring has sprung. The grass is riz; I wonder where the birdies is?” The birdies are here and on their way. Enjoy your robins and look for fox sparrows, golden-crowned kinglets, tree swallows, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, increasing numbers of turkey vultures, American white pelicans, hermit thrushes, ospreys, American woodcock, eastern phoebes, purple martins, American coots, nesting Canada geese and greening lawns. Listen for spring peepers, chorus frogs and in parts of the state, wood frogs.
I believe in the miracle of birds each time one swings into my field of view. If I’m fortunate, I might get to enjoy the terpsichorean talents of sandhill cranes. Reason number 397 why I like birds: just because.

Q&A
“Do house finches migrate?” They are permanent residents of Minnesota, but some birds undergo a short-distance migration south. It might be to avoid paying taxes.
Matt Hazelcroft asked what could be chewing on the trunks of his grapevines. There are three mammals that feast upon grapevines. A meadow vole girdles trunks. Deer find new shoots attractive. Rabbits chew and remove the bark, and clip off branches of young vines. They will feed on trunks of established grapevines in the winter.
“Do killdeer have any nicknames?” Because a killdeer is so noisy (even at night) it was called chattering plover and the noisy plover by early naturalists. While leading a birding trip in North Dakota, I heard a participant call one a meadow plover. When foraging for insects or other invertebrates, killdeer move in fits and starts. When they pause, invariably they bob their heads up and down as if they have a severe case of the hiccups. They are pumping their tails and their heads follow along. This may be a strategy to make the birds appear larger than they are to an intruder or a perceived predator.
“Do male bald eagles incubate the eggs?” Both male and female eagles develop a brood patch (bare skin held directly against the eggs or chicks to keep them warm). They share incubation responsibilities but the female typically spends more time on the nest than the male. During the first four weeks after hatching, one (usually the female) broods the babies to keep them warm during cool weather.
Gretchen Taylor asks why she notices goldfinches more during their spring molt than during their fall molt. Part of the reason we notice them more might be because they become brighter in the spring and drabber in the fall when males resemble females. Goldfinches obtain their breeding plumage by replacing only their body feathers each spring. Their body plumage, flight and tail feathers are replaced during a full molt each fall. Beginning in September, and continuing for six to eight weeks, they molt all their feathers, ending up with a new set of drab feathers heading into winter. A complete molt is exhausting and makes birds vulnerable, and that makes them more secretive. In spring, the males transform into a bright yellow breeding plumage, but their wing and tail feathers remain from the previous fall. As these wing feathers get older, the pale edges fade and disintegrate, so that by the end of the summer the wings look all black.
“I saw a quail in Le Sueur. Is that part of its natural range? “No, that northern bobwhite would have been a pen-raised bird that was either released or escaped. Surveys have found no wild populations, only introduced birds in Minnesota.
“How many deer are hit by cars each year?” According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there are over 1 million car accidents with deer each year, which kill 200 Americans, cause more than 10,000 personal injuries and result in over $1 billion in vehicle damage. The numbers of collisions are much higher than that because of all the unreported accidents.

Thanks for stopping by
“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy—sun, wind, and tide. I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”—Thomas Edison.
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”—Melody Beattie.
Do good.

©Al Batt 2022